REX WEATHER FORCE For MSFS

[FlyingInACessna 656]

40 minutes ago, B777ER said:

And model data, which is all that is available now, can be up to 12 hour old.

Why are you convinced that 12 hour old model data is all that is available? All of the winds I’ve seen in the last day have been within 10 degrees of the METAR and within 3 kts of the wind speed of the METAR. A combination of both is ideal, but METARs alone cannot suffice. They literally only describe weather phenomena directly above the airport - 2-3 miles surrounding the field at best. We get intense marine layers here in the early morning and at night that like to sit off the shore of the water 2 nm from the runway edge. The METAR reports it as clear, and the sim shows not a cloud in the sky (with metar-based engines), but there’s a thick layer of 300 ft AGL overcast clouds over the entire ocean that don’t appear anywhere. This isn’t realistic. 

Plus, actual winds are rarely exactly as the METAR shows after 5-10 mins past publication. Forecasts applied afterward do a better job of depicting changes in wind over the hour.

The METAR needs some weight (especially in terms of temperature, visibility, and altimeter), but cloud phenomena & winds should be supplemented by the forecast. 

Edited September 17, 2020 by FlyingInACessna

[Tuskin38 6,458]

6 hours ago, UAL4life said:

Meteoblue and Asobo cant even get the temps right and barely the winds, so I will for sure be buying this now...

They're fine* now after the latest patch.

*Wind seem to be 10 exactly knots below, but temperature seems to be accurate, at least from my testing.

Edited September 17, 2020 by Tuskin38

[SUNDR1V3R 72]

On 9/16/2020 at 2:07 AM, rstough said:

We hope they do fix it so it is no skin off our back.  We built WF because we saw that there was definitely some issues.  In addition, we also wanted to provide archive as well as custom dynamic weather scenarios.

I believe that what Asobo has done is amazing, but there is definitely a difference between metar and model data.  Model data is based upon a grid which covers the world.  Most global models cannot get to that level.  There are some local models that can, but again they are at best forecasts.  Metar is real data reported from an observer.  So WF is built from metar data.  If  it says a thunderstorm you will get a thunderstorm.

If you offer historic WX I’m in.. In the other hand I really think you should offer a trial so we can see the difference..

 

Any options that makes the sim better is more than welcome..

Edited September 17, 2020 by SUNDR1V3R

[Baptista 49]

Around 2009 at the time of the Rex launch, for FSX and P3d, the product simply changed my visual and practical way for a flight. I received this news for MSFS with great expectation. Everything adds up to this new phase of reality that we are experiencing.

[eslader 1,779]

On 9/16/2020 at 1:08 AM, carlito777 said:

Microsoft uses much more precise data than METARS.

There's a line from Hitchhiker's guide. "The way it functioned was very interesting. When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject’s taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject’s metabolism and then sent tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centers of the subject’s brain to see what was likely to go down well. However, no one knew quite why it did this because it invariably delivered a cupful of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea."

The trouble I'm finding with Meteoblue as used in MSFS is that it's either *using* very precise incorrect data, or it's very precisely incorrectly interpreting the very precise data. 😉

I don't pretend to know how weather injection works now or in the past, but I do know that even dismissing the (now fixed) 3kt wind bug, there have been many times when I'd fly through weather that was nothing like the real world weather. We're talking severe thunderstorm real world, severe clear in-sim differences here. More often, the weather is fairly close but, for instance, it'll be a mild rainstorm instead of the real-world thunderstorm. Meanwhile over in p3d, Activesky gets pretty freaking close to whatever's happening real-world. I used to chase tornadoes, so I have a bunch of weather-dork stuff on my system, and when I'd pull up GRLevel3, whatever it showed was almost always what I was flying through.

 

 

 

[Farlis 2,280]

3 minutes ago, eslader said:

The trouble I'm finding with Meteoblue as used in MSFS is that it's either *using* very precise incorrect data, or it's very precisely incorrectly interpreting the very precise data.

You sir, are an artist!

[MrBitstFlyer 3,836]

7 hours ago, Nyxx said:

If METARS were some golden perfect thing.

METAR is used to tell the actual meteorological conditions on a station, airport or area indicating day/time wind, clouds, precipitations, altimeter pressure and temperature, it has a duration of 60 minutes and it is updated every hour.

So if you anything from 15-55 minutes later than the report who knows what you will get, it is a forecast nothing more. Could be perfect could be totally wrong. So lets not make out there some God like perfect thing.

Metars are updated when the weather changes.  On a dynamic weather day, the metar may be updated several times per hour.

[sd_flyer 6,034]

3 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

Metars are updated when the weather changes.  On a dynamic weather day, the metar may be updated several times per hour.

METAR is updated every hour. if there significant weather changes then it comes with abbreviation SPECI. ATIS is changing more dynamically just like you describe

 

You can see example current KCRQ here for the past 2 hours. Notice zulu time 19:53 and 18:53

KCRQ 171953Z 27007KT 10SM CLR 30/08 A2990 RMK AO2 SLP122 T03000078
KCRQ 171853Z 28005KT 10SM CLR 28/13 A2992 RMK AO2 SLP128 T02780133
 

[mikeklimek 145]

I haven't been terribly impressed with the default weather engine and its bugs.  If REX puts out anything resembling what Active Sky did for FSX, I'm sold.

[Kilo60 660]

1 minute ago, mikeklimek said:

I haven't been terribly impressed with the default weather engine and its bugs.  If REX puts out anything resembling what Active Sky did for FSX, I'm sold.

And I’m not buying any weather add-on till I see what active sky comes up with!

[SierraDelta 1,337]

9 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

METAR is updated every hour.

Not necessesarily:
"METAR reports are provided at regular intervals (usually 30 minutes) and provide essential weather information about an aerodrome. Data should be representative for the whole aerodrome operating area."

Quoted from this page: https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Weather_Observations_at_Aerodromes

Edited September 18, 2020 by SierraDelta

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

It would have to mix the metar data with infrared live gradient information scanned by radars and satellite infrared, but I'm not sure the central repository for all that data. The alternative is to use a sort of triangulation of all the reporting stations and to draw "virtual lines" of weather on a map and update it every few minutes, but this does not work as well in very remote areas.

It's a lot of work, as even Weather.com cannot accurately depict cloud movement in the future, it has very poor accuracy unless a system is very strongly moving in one direction rather than popcorn storms which it is pretty inaccurate at predicting. For instance, the other day at my house - weather.com said  35% chance of rain in 1 hour, and 10% the next following hour, and 0% in 4 hours. 

Well, it poured down for 6 hours straight when it said 0% after 4 hours.

 

Edited September 18, 2020 by SceneryFX

[Gabe777 132]

On 9/16/2020 at 7:08 AM, carlito777 said:

Microsoft uses much more precise data than METARS. Can‘t see how this would be an improvement once the built-in weather engine is fixed. In the past, REX has basically just sold bitmaps with all their products. Don‘t see what they can bring to the table in MSFS. 

Exactly my thoughts.

HiFi have been honest and stated there is a limit to what they can do without a better SDK.

But REX are offering the world.... Hmmm !

[Japo32 52]

The problem I see with Metars are in places around the world where metars are 500-1000nm from where you are flying: Africa, Papua, in the middle of any sea or ocean.... Finally Asobo did the right thing, that is translate the satellite image to the sim. It is a marvelous thing to fly now in Papua in VFR.

Still needs improvement but I think Asobo is going in the right direction. I wish we could mix the satellite data + Metars to be more accurate.

[sd_flyer 6,034]

7 hours ago, SierraDelta said:

Not necessesarily:
"METAR reports are provided at regular intervals (usually 30 minutes) and provide essential weather information about an aerodrome. Data should be representative for the whole aerodrome operating area."

Quoted from this page: https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Weather_Observations_at_Aerodromes

When I was getting my instrument rating many years ago it I learnt it was always  55 minute past the hour. Perhaps "usually" mean different thing for different people  but here an example  of recent KCRQ METAR at the moment. You see usually it an hour 0753Z, 0853Z, 0953Z, 1053Z, 1153Z, 1253Z

Data at: 1314 UTC 18 Sep 2020

KCRQ 181253Z AUTO 00000KT 10SM CLR 19/06 A2985 RMK AO2 SLP105 T01940056
KCRQ 181153Z AUTO 00000KT 10SM CLR 19/07 A2984 RMK AO2 SLP102 T01890067 10217 20189 58007
KCRQ 181053Z AUTO 00000KT 10SM CLR 19/09 A2985 RMK AO2 SLP105 T01940094
KCRQ 180953Z AUTO 00000KT 10SM CLR 20/12 A2986 RMK AO2 SLP108 T02000117
KCRQ 180853Z AUTO 00000KT 10SM CLR 21/12 A2987 RMK AO2 SLP109 T02060117 55002
KCRQ 180753Z AUTO 16003KT 10SM CLR 21/12 A2986 RMK AO2 SLP108 T02060117 403060183